


build from the bottom of the pit

by cinderlily



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Post 1x5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 13:56:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8448745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderlily/pseuds/cinderlily
Summary: Ginnifer Baker was familiar with exhaustion, but this was pushing it. (Post 1x05, pre 1x06. I have a lot of feelings.)





	

Ginnifer Baker knew exhaustion. The bone deep exhaustion of a day full of workout. The exhaustion of losing a game that meant the most. The exhaustion of being put into the spotlight when you aren’t ready for it. The exhaustion of loneliness. The bone crushing exhaustion of depression that lingered for so long after the death of the person who you put all your trust in.

This exhaustion was not familiar though. This feeling was layers she couldn’t quite parse out even though she had given it a chance more than once. She almost went to the team doc thinking she’d caught some sort of bug before she realized that the only symptom was the feeling of not wanting to do anything.

She _did_ do things. She got up. She did her stretches. She warmed up. She ran. She worked out. Biology against her and all that. Lawson would show up, as he always did, but she didn’t take out her earphones. She just turned the speed higher on whatever machine she was on, even if it felt like she was running underwater.

Lawson tried to breach it, but she was getting good at ignoring him unless she absolutely had to talk to him. Blip tried to breach it, but she’d mastered avoiding him if she needed to. Even Amelia sent Eliot to try and break her. At least she was smart enough to make it Eliot and not her. Even though Ginny had played it off, she knew Amelia knew her better than that.

Who she couldn’t say no to, apparently, was Evelyn. Evelyn had her ways and walked into her room like a woman on a freaking mission.

“There is usually people out there,” Ginny said, a little concerned.

“Oh, you mean Luka and Grant? They’re great. Grant just got married, you know? And Luka is working on getting a visa from Russia for his mom.”

Ginny, who had been just in a shirt and her underwear, slipped on a pair of sleep pants and walked over to Evelyn. “Ev, I really, really, really don’t have the energy to talk right now.”

“Yeah, Blip says you’ve been basically catatonic,” she said, taking out a bottle of wine and a tub of ice cream. “He said for the past week you have barely said boo to him and even less to your dear Captain who is about as frustrated as I’ve ever seen him. But it serves him right, so I’m not here to tell you to talk to him. Cups?”

Ginny walked over to the little counter and found the pathetic small plastic water glasses in the hotel. She really needed to find an apartment. Or some temporary housing. This was getting out of control. She handed both to Evelyn and she got a sad smile in return.

“Aww, honey, you aren’t even really fighting, this is bad,” Evelyn unscrewed the top of the bottle and poured it into the first cup and handed it to her. “You need this and you don’t pitch tomorrow. So don’t act like you can’t.”

She took a sip from the glass, white and sweet as fucking sugar. She made a face. “What shit is this?”

“Riesling. Doesn’t taste like booze really. Dangerous. Also? Ben and Jerry’s because this is obviously a ten out of ten situation.”

She blinked at Evelyn and sat down on her chair, tucking her foot underneath herself. “I don’t have spoons.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes and grabbed in the bag, procuring two spoons and _another_ pint of Ben and Jerry’s. “Chunky Monkey or Cherry Garcia?”

“Cherry Garcia,” she said, no need to think that one through. It was one of her more favorite cheats. Only topped by Phish Food. “Blip got a boys night?”

“If you consider handling our boys and a moping catcher as a boys night, sure, let’s call it that.”

Her back straightened. “Lawson?”

Evelyn tapped her nose. “Right in one. He’s been making excuses to come over. Which I think is because he _rightfully_ assumed that you would be there. But you haven’t. Which I’ve had three whining boys reminding me daily.”

“I’m just tired,” she said, taking a spoonful of ice cream and shoving it into her mouth. Heaven.

“I bet you are,” Evelyn said.

She swallowed the ice cream down with the wine, which made the wine far more palatable. She handed her cup to be refilled. A few more bites with wine chaser and she felt the familiar buzz of liquor hit her in that slow way it had. Her toes began to curl and her body began to relax.

“It shouldn’t bug me, Ev,” she said. “They’re both adults. He has every right to…”

“Screw your manager and then call you to talk in the afterglow?”

Her stomach churned, momentarily making her fear that the ice cream would make a comeback. The thought hadn’t really struck her but it had to have happened at least once or twice. They’d talked almost every night. If he was… with her. Then he must have called her after they had or before? She sipped the wine slowly.

“His choice. Her choice.”

“Come on, Gin. Let’s talk realistically here.”

Ginny frowned into her plastic cup, it was empty. She handed it over to Evelyn who filled it up. “What is there to talk about? They’re screwing. Hell, they’re dating. I can be maid of honor. _We_ were talking on the phone and on the road. That’s what pitchers and catchers do. I’m his rookie.”

“So why did you stop?”

She dug into her pint, picking out a large chocolate chunk and shoving it into her mouth to give herself something to chew on. She’d stopped because… well. If she could say honestly she stopped because it felt tainted after she heard it. It made her feel a number. Which was patently ridiculous. She was a number to him before Amelia. Maybe it was putting a face to the person who was obviously ahead of her that made it less appealing.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, taking another bite. “I thought something different.”

Evelyn made a noise of disapproval that had to come with motherhood, as she’d heard it a million times in her childhood. “Ginny, you know what the problem was.”

“I obviously don’t, so enlighten me,” she snapped.

She got a raised eyebrow that all but said, ‘Oh try me.’

“You were acting as the emotional stand in for a relationship,” Evelyn said. “Which was fine when the physical was a random face in a crowd you never had to see. But then there was a face.”

‘ _Fuck_ ,’ she thought. She owed Blip a beer. It must be weird having a wife who could figure out shit before you did, and the look she gave her. She curled up a little bit more, making herself as small as she could on the tiny chair.

“I was only his … _emotional stand in_ for a few months,” she said, looking at the bottom of her cup rather than at Evelyn. “It wasn’t that big of a thing.”

“Right,” Evelyn hummed.

Ginny looked over at him. “I had a crush on him when I was 16, this was just some twisted fantasy. Okay? I’ve got my big girl panties on. I’m an adult now. I’m _fine_.”

Evelyn looked her up and down and frowned but nodded. “Okay, if that’s what we’re going with. There is a marathon of Scandal on. You know me and Shonda. Come sit on the couch.”

Even though she was perfectly aware that Evelyn was just basically placating her she was willing to take the life line. She picked up her cup and put on the weird side table and grabbed the fast melting ice creams to put it in the tiny hotel freezer. She walked over and sat down entirely too close to Evelyn. Slowly she leaned her head down until her head was in Evelyn’s lap and Evelyn was playing with her hair. It was the kind of comfort she needed but could never ask for. The familiarity of touch.

*

The next day she spent wrapped in her blanket, breaking only to force herself to run on the hotels machine for an hour and to do a little rowing. She wasn’t quite ‘hungover’ per se but she was definitely not at her best. So she let it be.

She ordered room service and didn’t answer her phone even when Amelia called six times. She turned off her cell phone after call two and asked the concierge for her calls to go straight to voicemail after call number six.

*

The day after that they started a home series against the Diamondbacks. She was thankful, a team so awful she was basically allowed to block out most thoughts. She had watched video but really? She just had to focus on the mitt and ignore the rest. Even the owner of the mitt.

“You talking to me yet?” Mike asked as they walked out on the field.

She put on a half smile. “Depends. Do you have anything interesting to say?”

His lips tightened and she looked out to the mound. She counted to ten and when he still said nothing she ran out. The crowd cheered and she tried not to hear it. She straightened her cap and tossed the bag. She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly.

He crouched in his usual place, and she warmed up like always. Everything was painfully, acutely normal. She was going to do it this way. Be normal. No, not normal, she was going to be amazing.

She threw each ball like it was the last ball in the World Series. And not that the team she was playing was giving her much to play against (though Goldschmidt was playing hard as hell, damn), it was just the right type of distraction for her.

 _I’m a robot_.

For once that worked in her favor.

*

They win, naturally, 5-0. She hadn’t thrown a no hitter, Goldie had gotten on in the seventh and the ninth, but she had thrown a shut out. That felt good enough hat she was smiling as she walked off the field.

“There’s that smile,” Blip said, giving her two high fives.

She winked at him. “You know me, all good after a night with your wife.”

Blip made a quite rude gesture but then winked back at her. They walked down the tunnel towards the locker room jostling each other and making jokes. She felt a lighter than she had in a week. She was most of the way to her locker room to change when she was stopped.

“BAKER!” Mike barked and she turned around to find the Captain staring her down. She braced herself and put her hands in her pockets.

“Oh Captain, my Captain,” she said.

He rolled his eyes and walked closer to her. “Come on, Rook. You going to talk to me now?”

“I told you, you got something interesting?”

He made his constipated face, the one he always did when she called him on his bullshit, or when he was asked to talk about his feelings. She crossed her arms and ignored the desire to make the situation less awkward.

“Is this the Amelia thing?”

She tilted her head and made the biggest Bambi eyes she could muster. Her brother used to tease the hell out of her for her ability to use them. He called them her super power. “What ‘Amelia’ thing?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Mike said, looking away from her.

“Oh,” she said, planting her feet and moving her arms. “Are you talking about the part where you were screwing my manager or maybe that in all the talks we had you forgot to mention it? OR _maybe_ the fact that I had to hear it from Amelia? Or the fact that you talk this huge game about how we need to be honest with one another while lying to my face more than once? Is _that_ the ‘Amelia’ thing?”

Mike’s cheeks were bright red and he looked like he was pissed. “I didn’t _lie_ to you.”

“So you weren’t with Amelia the night of the dinner with my mom?”

“That wasn’t…”

Ginny put up her hands. “Look, Lawson. Your life, your choices. Just don’t talk to me about us bonding or some shit. We’re good on the field. We’ve got a good thing going there. Just. Leave me alone, okay? I’m not your emotional fuck buddy.”

She turned and walked into the locker room, closing the door hard behind her, but not fast enough to avoid hearing, “ _Emotional what_?”

She sat down on the chair and blinked a few times. No tears. No tears. No freaking time for tears. She heard a loud thump outside and hoped for the team’s sake the dumb ass had at least just knocked something over because if he had punched something or, worse, kicked something, she would personally be the one to kick his punk ass.

She undressed slowly and walked into the dinky shower with bad water pressure to take her shower. She knew she was going to be asked questions, she knew that she should be out for the scrum right at that moment but she took her time. She still felt the exhaustion. It was hidden under the adrenaline of the game and the fight but it was there.

A trainer came in to ice her up and she had no more time to herself. The group of reporters outside pounced as soon as the trainer had left and she stood up and smiled.

“Ginny! That was some serious throwing out there. Any particular reason you felt like picking on the Diamondbacks?”

“Ginny! Goldie got some good heat off that ball in the seventh, but it didn’t seem to phase you. He’s gotten the better of a lot of the greats, what kept you focused?”

“Ginny! You and Lawson are a good pair, where are you getting that chemistry?”

She answered the questions the best she could and in the order they came. She stumbled over the chemistry question but she’d spent enough time being yelled at to answer questions in a reasonably blank way. She might as well have been talking to a mirror when it came down to it.

She put her hand up when it got to be too much and the security guy who was usually outside of her room escorted the group out of the room. Blip was just outside of the door and he leaned in with a smile.

“Guys are getting a beer, come on.”

“Blip, I don’t think I …”

Blip tilted his head. “Oh, I’m sorry. Was there a question in my voice? Come on, Gin. You just hit a complete game. You need out. And _not_ with my wife. It’s a club, no TVs, I promise. We’ll dance. We’ll drink. You will make friends and influence people. All the good stuff.”

She sighed and rolled her shoulders. “Okay. One beer. I can do one beer.”

*

Three beers. She can do three beers. And a shot or two. Not that bad, not that much. It left her feeling warm and full. Not quite full on drunk but that nice line between buzz and drunk. It helped her to avoid the knowledge that about fifteen feet to her right was Mike Lawson and if she looked towards him he was most likely looking straight at her. At least that was the last five times.

She was talking to Johnson about a game she had while in Texas, one where she was painfully close to a perfect game.

“But this huge brick shit house of a guy came out of nowhere,” she said, her hands going wildly. “And second to last guy up, this guy just took a slice of the ball, one stupid inch of his gargantuan swing and boom. Home run.”

Johnson gave her a sympathetic wince. “Fuuuuck.”

“After the game my brother came up and put his hand on my back and said, ‘There was no strike zone sis, he WAS the strike zone.’” She laughed, harder than was merited. Back then it hadn’t felt funny at all but for some reason at that moment it was hilarious. The guys around her looked at her weirdly but she still laughed, sipping slowly at her beer to avoid any coming out of her nose.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Blip giving her the ‘Dad’ look and she gave an exaggerated frown. “Nope.”

“Come on, Ginny,” Blip said. “I called an Uber.”

Ginny shook her head. “You said I needed to have fun, I’m having fun. So. NOPE.”

Blip leaned in to say something and she knocked him back.

“Anyone want to dance? This is my jam.”

“Do you even know what song this is?” one of the guys asked.

Ginny smiled beatifically. “ _My jam_ , duh.”

She stood up and was happy to find she was steady on her feet. Blip stood back and made disappointed face at her but whatever. Her arm felt okay, she felt okay and she’d gotten a shutout so she had a whole rotation worth of games before she was meant to play again. She got to the dance floor and a few of the guys had followed, thankfully. She was a lot more confident when there was a crowd.

The song changed and the next song was one she actually did recognize, but was a lot slower than the previous. She sagged. Damn it, she didn’t want to go back to the seat and face Blip. Uber or not, she was not ready to go home. Suddenly she felt two hands on her hips and she whipped around to find Mike _freaking_ Lawson behind her.

“Go away,” she said, but there was no heat, no meaning behind it. She slipped her hands up and behind his head.

He moved his body towards her slowly and she matched it. Slow and steady they danced together.

“You have anything interesting to say?” she said, just in front of his ear. She pulled back and met his eyes.

His eyes were wide and staring at her intently, so close that they were both a little cross-eyed because of it. “ _Emotional stand in_.”

She ducked her head down against his shoulder, her face feeling too warm, before pulling up. “Let’s just let it go, Old Man. Let’s just… move on.”

“You know what the worst part of this last week’s been,” he said, ignoring her.

“Hanging out with Blip?” she teased, feeling strangely bare where his eyes were so focused on her.

He shook his head. “I was so annoyed and mad at you that I wanted to call _you_ to talk about it.”

“What?”

“You’re the one I want to talk to when my day is shitty, or good, or in between,” Mike said. “And I didn’t get why it was bugging me so much but now I do.”

The music changed again, the DJ bringing it back to a dance beat and Ginny took the chance to turn around and walk off the dance floor. Too much. It was too freaking much. The words, yeah. The air in the room, stifling. The fact that the guys were _all right there_. She passed Blip as she walked towards the front door.

It wasn’t necessarily quiet outside the club, there were people waiting to get in and there were paparazzi and loudness and crazy but at least the air was cooler. She breathed in.

“Ginny,” she turned and saw Mike walk out. Cameras blinked everywhere and she felt like a caged animal. Mike put a hand up to cover his eyes. “I’ll drive you home.”

He grabbed her arm and lead her to a nearby parking lot. She was almost relieved to just have some direction to go to. She got into his stupidly low car and waited till he was in the driver’s seat.

“How much did you drink?” she asked.

“A beer, over three hours,” he said, slowly. “I’m fine. I don’t need a freaking DUI to add to my list of fuck ups.”

She relaxed by a fraction. She wasn’t comfortable in cars. She wasn’t comfortable with alcohol in cars. Not that she should have to explain that to Mike, as drunk driving was dumb as hell even if your … friend’s? dad had died in a drunk driving incident. She crossed her arms over her stomach, second thought it and grabbed at her arms like she was cold.

Mike reached forward and put on the heat. She wasn’t cold, but it was the thought she guessed that counted. The warm air was nice. They had gotten far enough down the road that she didn’t have the slight fear of a paparazzi popping out of nowhere so she relaxed back and tucked her feet under her body.

“Baker,” he started.

“No.”

“This isn’t going to be a game of cat and mouse, Ginny. I’m in your life and I want to talk to you, can you at least give me the car ride here? You don’t even have to look at me.”

It wasn’t the words that got her, well maybe a little, but the tone. It was, by far, the closest to pleading she was going to get from Mike Lawson. Voice higher and stressed. She looked forward, pursed her lips and nodded.

“Okay.”

“I shouldn’t have slept with Amelia. I knew it when I first did it. But I’m not going to lie and say we didn’t have a connection,” he said and Ginny almost stopped him there. It wasn’t words she wanted to hear, she didn’t need to know… details. “But what I realized rather quickly was what we had, on some level, was a connection over you.”

She jerked her head to look at Mike. He had his eyes on the road, thankfully, but his lips turned downwards when she looked over.

“You come into this stupid league and I was planning on letting myself hate you, you know? I’m good at hating people. Especially new people. You come in, young and all doe eyed. Having my rookie card in your damn pocket. I thought you were going to be a nuisance. And you have been, don’t get me wrong.

“But as time goes on you become _my_ nuisance. You laugh at my bad jokes. You listen to me like I know shit all about what I’m doing with my life. You give me advice, which hey. I don’t take but whatever. But what _really_ kills me is that you are a fighter. You fight every single day and from what I can tell you’ve been fighting for all twenty three of your years on this earth.”

He twisted his hands on the steering wheel. “And that’s a fucking trip, Baker… I mean. After years of just going through the motions… fuck. You show up. And you’re so _you_ I can’t do a thing about it. I’m not going to use you like a freaking groupie, which I’ve done to too many girls. I’m not going to have a friends-with-benefits, like Amelia. With you I know you take things seriously. You work hard and don’t let yourself just relax. I’m not going to break you because I might want you.”

“You want me?” Ginny stumbled on the words, her mouth not forming correctly even the simplest words.

“ _Might_ ,” he enunciated, holding up a finger. “But an ‘ _emotional stand in_ ’? That’s what I’ve been doing to you. I’ve been using you as an emotional freaking stand in. Which is worse, I think. I think it makes me a new level of bastard that even I am not entirely prepared for.”

Ginny exhaled. “That was Evelyn.”

“Evelyn?”

“We drank and had ice cream and she got me to admit that I felt like... _that_.”

“Well, explains how Blip uses Jedi mind tricks.”

Ginny couldn’t help but let out a half laugh, looking back down at her knees. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“It’s true, though.” Mike’s voice was soft, enough that she whipped her head back to see the last word come out of his mouth.

She thought for a second how to answer it. “I let it happen. I mean. I liked being there for you. I liked talking to you. Hearing your stupid jokes late at night. I’m just as much to blame.”

“No, no you aren’t,” Mike shook his head. “I mean, take your blame, Rook and I’m okay with that. But I’m the one who takes the bulk of this.”

They drove for three minute, a really really long three minutes, that she was only sure the length of because of the clock on Mike’s ridiculous car’s screen. She watched it tick over and then again and a final time before she broke.

“What the hell does this even mean?”

“It means that I fucked up,” he said. “And I’m going to undo it.”

They pulled into the parking structure of the hotel she was staying at and found a spot nearest the entrance.

“Is that so?” she said and nervously pulled her hair into a pony before she realized she had let it down and didn’t have a band with her. “How do you plan on doing that?”

She almost thought he was going to ask his way up and she knew she would say yes. She wasn’t really that kind of girl. Actually, she didn’t entirely know if she was that type of girl but she didn’t _think_ she was that type of girl. (Not that there was anything _wrong_ with that type of girl.)

But she knew that if Mike Lawson asked his way up to her room that she was going to say yes and she was going to do things she didn’t really do with guys unless … Fuck she didn’t even have an unless.

“Ginny,” Mike’s hand landed on her knee, which apparently was twitching rather fast. Did she just miss part of a conversation.

“What?” she said, defensively.

Mike frowned at her. “I’m not going up to your room.”

She blinked at him. “You’re not.”

Even though she hadn’t asked him, he answered. “No, not tonight. I told you. You aren’t a freaking groupie, or a fuck buddy. I’m not fucking all of this up because I want you. Which. I do. I really do. But what we have? On the field? Prior to this week, not on the field? We are lucky to have that. So if you want to do this. If you want… to move forward. We talk. We probably fight a lot. We move slowly. As slowly as we need, as you need. Hell, even as slow as I need and I’m pretty freaking old so slow moving is my style. ”

She smiled softly. She looked at his face, the way his mouth was pointed upwards. She thought of all the things in her life she had no control of. Her stomach twisted, but in a pleasant way. Because they were on the same page, apparently. They were … moving slowly. Which felt better than anything else.

Impulsively she leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Slowly?”

“Not high school slowly,” he laughed and gave her a peck on the lips.

“Okay,” she said, breathing slowly because if that was what a peck from him felt like? She reached blindly for the door handle. “Night, Mike.”

There was a long silence before. “Night Ginny.”

She walked to her hotel room feeling lighter than she had a week ago. Even with the layers upon layers of shit they would no doubt have to wade through. She got to her room, took a shower and slipped into her most comfortable PJs. She was just about to turn on her TV when her cell phone rang.

She laughed. “Miss me already?”

“So I was thinking about Albert Pujols.”

“Man, you are good at this romance game,” she chided.

Mike laughed. “Never said I’d be good at this either.”

She threw the remote to the side. “Tell me about Albert Pujols.”

“If he’d stayed in St. Louis he’d be king but he chooses to move. Why?...”

That night, when she finally fell asleep, she slept the best she had in a long time and when she woke up she felt more rested than she could remember feeling.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't ever wanna let you down.  
> I don't ever wanna leave this town.  
> Cause after all,  
> this city never sleeps at night.  
> \- It's Time by Imagine Dragons 
> 
> Unbetaed as I don't know many people watching the show who beta.


End file.
